


We could be bigger and brighter than space

by buckybuck (thestarsthesea)



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 02:04:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14945552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarsthesea/pseuds/buckybuck
Summary: PROMPT: “if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to seduce me”The first time it happens Bucky doesn’t think much of it. It’s sort of a throwaway comment. A joke, really.





	We could be bigger and brighter than space

← ★ →

The first time it happens Bucky doesn’t think much of it. It’s sort of a throwaway comment. A joke, really.

He’s just let himself into Clint’s Bed Stuy apartment, ready to drag him to the monthly Avenger get together, something that Barton skips more often than not, by force. (Tasha explained it to him, once, when she was drunk – half off vodka, half off pain thanks to an op gone a little sideways – about Clint’s self worth issues. How he never thinks people actually want him around, so he stays away thinking it’s what everyone prefers but doesn’t say. She’s been trying to prove him wrong for over a decade, and is increasingly irritated at not managing it, yet.) He walks in to find Clint at his table by the window, mostly turned away from the door, three hand guns pulled apart in front of him clearly having just been cleaned and oiled, and his long careful fingers are disassembling a beautiful matte black sniper rifle, wiping pieces gently as they come off.

Bucky stands at the door, can’t help but stand and watch for a bit. Clint’s almost tender as he takes the rifle apart, reverent but precise. He’s clearly skilled and knows what he’s doing, even though Bucky can’t remember a single time in the last few years that he’s seen Clint use any weapon other than his bow, his fists, and on one occasion, one of Natasha’s throwing knives.

Clint has his aids in, Bucky can see the muted purple from here, the way they curve behind Clint’s ear like a beacon to weakness, but one Clint refuses to be ashamed of. Bucky quietly, so quiet he doesn’t even disturb Lucky, walks closer to the table, wisely stopping a few feet behind Clint’s back and says, voice just loud enough for the aids to pick up, “You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to seduce me.”

Clint jumps half a foot in the air, turning around so quickly Bucky barely has time to shoot a hand out to catch the bottle of gun oil unerringly aimed at the middle of his forehead. Bucky doubles over, laughing breathlessly at Clint’s half-startled, half-outraged expression.

Letting out a disgruntled, wordless yell, Clint gets up to snatch the oil out of Bucky’s hand. “Barnes! You asshole what are you _doing_? Trying to give me a _heart attack_?”

Bucky takes a deep breath, composing himself a little, but a few helpless chuckles (they’re not giggles, no matter what anyone says, he doesn’t _giggle_ ) still get out. “You gotta work on your awareness, Barton, that was abysmal.”

Clint makes a face as he turns back to the abandoned guns, quickly and methodically putting them back together. “Well I’m not used to asshole ghosts entering my apartment without texting first, so forgive my poor performance.”

“You know, most assassins won’t call ahead of time, Barton.” Bucky shoots back, watching Clint’s fingers again.

Clint turns to him, exaggerated frown on his mouth as he shrugs, pieces of his handgun still in his hands. “Guess I’ll die.”

Bucky’s lips twitch as he tries not to smile at the reference, but Clint notices, of course he does, he showed Bucky those memes, and he smirks as he turns back to his task. Clint puts the guns back together at a speed that it impresses Bucky a bit, remembering Clint doesn’t use firearms at all.

The safety clicks on the last gun, and Bucky finally decides to get on with what he came here for. “C’mon Hawkguy, we have dinner and a movie to catch at Stark’s place.”

Clint doesn’t look at him as he cleans up, but his fingers twitch the barest amount as he smooths the rag he was using for the oil. “Can’t. Have plans.”

Bucky’s heart breaks, just a little, at how fast and easy Clint dismisses himself from the group. But he won’t let Clint know that, _can’t_ or he’ll never get Clint to come with him. “Cancel ‘em. Tony assures me team bonding is more important.” Clint throws him a very pointed look, Bucky has no choice but concede. “Sure, okay, it was sarcastic, but he drug his ass out of his workshop, so _you_ can drag your ass all the way to Manhattan for chinese food and Titanic.”

That finally gets Clint to look at him again. “Aw, Titanic?”

”Yup. Tasha says Steve ‘n I gotta see it ‘cause it’s “a crime” we haven’t yet.”

Clint nods, picking his guns up and taking them over to his supply closet. “She’s always had a soft spot for that movie.” He barely stops talking before frantically sticking his head out to look at Bucky, eyes wide. “Don’t tell her I said that.”

Bucky taps his thumb and index finger together, the metal quietly clicking together, as an idea floats to mind. “Only if you agree to come with me, ‘cause, if not,” he shrugs, copying Clint from earlier. “who knows what might come up when I pass her the egg rolls.”

Huffing, Clint gets up from the crouch he’d been in. “Dirty tactics, Barnes.” Shutting the door of the closet, he turns around to grace Bucky with a glare. It’s not very effective, so Bucky doesn’t say anything, just stares innocently back, challenging Clint’s fear of Natasha. After a minute Clint sighs, whole body deflating. “Fine, lemme wash my hands.” 

Two minutes later he’s got Clint ushered from the apartment, bundled up for the cold evening and complaining about being dumb for falling for Bucky’s shit ‘cause Nat doesn’t even _like_ egg rolls, Bucky’s texting a thumbs up to Natasha, and the whole exchange is forgotten.

← ★ →

The second time is a bit more deliberate.

Clint has had a rough few weeks; his brother had popped back up, asking for things he doesn’t deserve, expecting Clint to bail him out again just because he wants Clint to; he’d been forced to shoot a kid on a mission, a boy barely eighteen who’d been so far gone in conditioning that it was kill or be killed, and Clint almost always wishes he could choose “be killed” when it’s someone so blameless; and on top of that, a few pipes exploded in his building, and he’s been dealing with the headache of getting them fixed for over a week.

Bucky isn’t looking for Clint, specifically, but he ends up finding him anyway, when he goes down to get a little practise on the range.

Clint’s a hunched over line of tension, his legs sprawled in front of him in a way that might have looked careless if not for how stiff he is, and spread all around him is what Bucky assumes is every practise gun in the range. Some of the guns have been taken apart, perfectly and precisely laid out in an order Bucky isn’t sure makes any sense to anyone but Clint; and Clint’s methodically, slowly, taking apart another one and checking each piece with a diligence that really doesn’t seem warranted.

Bucky bites his lip, wrestling with himself on whether he should leave quietly, or say something. The thing is, he can’t just leave Clint to be miserable, even though that’s what most everyone in the team would tell him to do.

Letting out a silent breath, Bucky steps forward deciding to lead with something he hopes Clint will laugh at, even if it’s just a little. “If I didn’t know any better, Barton, I’d say you were trying to seduce me.”

Clint doesn’t jump like last time, but his shoulders still twitch upwards a little in surprise. He turns, giving Bucky an unimpressed side eye. “I’m really not in the mood for jokes, Barnes.”

Shrugging, Bucky asks, “Well, what _are_ you in the mood for?”

Clint sighs and turns back to his guns. “Taking these guns apart, cleaning them, putting them back together, and doing it over and over until I feel less like pulling my hair out, mostly.”

Bucky doesn’t really like that plan. He likes Clint; likes the wry self-deprecating humour he has (even if half the time it makes Bucky’s chest feel a little heavy), likes how much of a disaster he is, likes how he’s always down for a shoot off in the range, or a late night video game and take out binge, just because Bucky feels like it, or because he’s slipping a little too far back into dark places. So Bucky really doesn’t wanna just leave Clint here to be stressed and spinning into a hole.

He clicks his tongue. “You could do that... _or_ we could order from that deliciously gross burger place with the gigantic cheeseburgers, grab a few beers, and watch zombie movies in Stark’s theatre room?”

After a considering pause, Clint pointedly takes a magazine out of another gun.

Not promising, but hey, Bucky hasn’t survive this long by giving up easy. “But, Barton, think of that juicy, thick, 100% beef patty...”

Clint puts the mag next to his knee.

Bucky takes a step forward. “The caramelized onions...”

Clint pulls back the slide, checking the chamber.

Another step. “The five slices of pepper bacon...”

Clint hesitates a little, but releases the slide, and pulls the trigger to release the pin.

Bucky’s right behind him now, less than a foot away. “The tangy sauce that’s always dripping from the bun because it can only hold so much before spilling over...”

Clint doesn’t move.

Bending down, Bucky sighs, right next to Clint’s ear. “The beer cheese...”

“Ugh fine!” Clint snatches the magazine back off the floor, slamming it into the gun he was disassembling, angrily clicking the safety back on. “Can’t let me just be miserable, you gotta come down here and be _nice_ and convince me to do one of my favourite things, and eat a burger that will shorten my lifespan by years- a burger you’re buying by the way- if this job doesn’t kill me first. You’re just the worst, Barnes.”

Bucky stands back up and smiles, triumphant. He takes a small step back and watches as Clint grumpily puts the guns back together. “You should really call me Bucky.”

← ★ →

The third time is completely different.

Bucky wakes up aching from every part of him except, of course, his left arm. But, he supposes, getting bowled over and smashed through a building by a mind-controlled Hulk would do that kinda thing to a guy. Luckily he’s made of tougher stuff than most, with his crackpot version of a super serum, he walked away with a hundred or so bruises, half a dozen sprains, and a few fractured bones that'll heal in less than a week; tough skin and a healing factor don’t mean it doesn’t hurt like hell, though.

He grits his teeth and rolls out of bed, has to take a minute to breathe through the series of clenching aches that radiate from, well, pretty much everywhere. He heads to the bathroom, determined to brush the dirt and grit from his mouth; it takes him twice as long as it should.

When he’s done he heads for the living room, too uncomfortable and awake to try going back to sleep. He limps through the door, pushing his dirty hair from his eyes, and isn’t even surprised to find Clint at his small table, cleaning out the barrel of Bucky’s sniper.

And Bucky’s seen Clint clean a dozen guns, some of his own, some that don’t really belong to anyone, he knows by now that it’s a comfort thing for Clint. The gun oil, the repetitive movements, the fact he can do it with his eyes closed, has no way of fucking it up, that it’s all soothing. But, well, there’s something a lot different seeing him handling _Bucky’s_ gun with all that careful skill.

It’s old by now, surely, but Bucky can’t help saying it anyway. Feels like he has to.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to seduce me, Clint.” His voice is creaky, unused and a little scratchy from inhaling concrete dust, the sound of it is loud in the room, even though he barely spoke above a whisper.

Clint looks up, sees Bucky there all battered and bruised, saying stupid washed up lines, and smiles down at his hands. He picks up the rifle, checks if the sight is straight- the one thing Bucky’ll never question Clint’s judgment on- and says, “Maybe. Is it working?”

It’s not huge, as far as revelations go, but Bucky realises, as Clint wipes down the frame of his favourite sniper rifle with the kinda care he uses when handling his own bow, that yeah, yeah it is. And maybe it has been, since the first time, and there were a hundred things before that that were working too. Bucky just refused to notice it.

Bucky manages a small shrug, too tired and hurt to try denying it, he just doesn’t want to, even if it backfires. “It has been. But only matters if you want it to.”

Clint chuckles, and Bucky can hear how tired his is in the weary tone of his voice. “Shoulda known guns would be a kink for you, Buck.”

And Bucky, still standing by his doorway, in the same croaky voice says, “Actually, it’s the guy doin’ it, more than the guns.”

In the silence of the apartment, Clint looks back up at him, catching Bucky’s eye and keeping it, his hands holding still on the table. A minute passes, two, and they just stare at each other; Clint, inscrutable; Bucky, exhausted and uncharacteristically open.

Clint swallows, and finally says, “Hey Buck, you wanna go on a date, when you look less like a dead person?”

Bucky blinks, laughs, ‘cause only Clint would be so awful as to ask a guy out like that. He smiles, limps toward the table, because there’s no way, half-dead or not, that he’s not kissing that asshole tonight.

← ★ →

**Author's Note:**

> I'll drop a bit of a truth bomb for everyone rn: I'm posting this mostlyyyyy because I'm tired of looking at it lol  
> Also, my computer is dying! It blue screened a few hours ago! So, dead computer + no money to replace it = me posting this because I might not have another chance to for.... who knows how long, tbh. Maybe while I don't have a computer, I'll _actually write_ , who knows, maybe miracles will happen lol
> 
>  
> 
> Here's all the business stuff:  
> Title Credit: What I Need by Hayley Kiyoko (ft. Kehlani)  
> Disclaimer: if I owned Marvel or any of its characters, I could definitely afford a new laptop, so clearly, I Do Not.
> 
>  
> 
> It's not beta'd because I'm awkward and I haven't talk to my betas for over a year and I'm not even sure they'd wanna do it anymore so instead of bothering them I.... just suffered and did it on my own. No doubt missing things and losing out on great advice and improvements, but, ugh, ya know?
> 
> Hope you all enjoy it!  
> <333


End file.
